18 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



their costly experience. Without their help 

 I would never have made a success of bee- 

 keeping. 



As I look at it now, it is a mistake for us 

 to set our bees out of the cellar early in the 

 day. For this reason : When they are taken 

 suddenly, after a louy confinement in the 

 dark, cool cellar, into the warm, dazzling 

 sunshine, they become so eager to get out of 

 their hives, that they only slightly mark the 

 location ; and sometimes they will congre- 

 gate in great numbers in a few hives, thus 

 greatly weakening other colonies. One sea- 

 son I had a number of colonies nearly ruin- 

 ed in this way. Last spring I carried the 

 bees out in the evening. That night the 

 weather turned cool and they did not have a 

 chance to fly for several days. But when 

 they did, they started out gradually and in a 

 natural way, carefully marking their loca- 

 tions : and I never had my bees in better 

 shape than they were then. 



Kansas City, Mo. Jan. 1.'), 1889. 



Bee-Keeping no Bonanza — Reserve Funds 

 Needed — Proposed Legislation Not 

 Understood— Plans That Fail- 

 Poor Queens. 



DB. C. O. MILLEB. 



lEIEND HUTCHINSON: — Yours of 

 Jan. 7 received. Your selection of 

 " Mistakes " for Feb. Review is an ex- 

 cellent one, and your selection of me 

 to occupy that number and fill it with mis- 

 takes does credit to your judgement. In case 

 the matter I send is found more than the 

 February number will hold, you can add 

 extra pages or run it over into Marcli. 



I made the mistake of supposing that I 

 could make more money than I have done at 

 raising honey. 



I made the mistake of supposing that a 

 year of poor yield in honey would bring up 

 prices where they were a few years ago, 

 when I could readily get 22 cents or more 

 for all the honey I could put on the market. 



I made the mistake of supposing that a 

 man with a fair knowledge of bee-keeping 

 and with enough ahead to carry him through 

 one year, could safely give up all other bus- 

 iness and depend entirely upon his bees for 

 a living. An entire failure for the past two 

 years, and a partial failure for the two years 

 preceding, show that it would be less of a 

 mistake to consider it necessary to have 

 three years living ahead before giving up 

 other business. 



I made the mistake of supposing that the 

 proposition of a measure intended for the 

 benefit of bee-keepers and the public at 

 large, would meet the general approbation 

 of bee-keepers. I think flwy made the mis- 

 take of supposing that the measure was in- 

 tended to be selfish, unfair and restrictive, 

 and they in their liberality wanted nothing 

 to hinder any one and everyone from enter- 

 ing the ranks of bee-keepers. 



After seeing how anxious they were that 

 every one should be a bee-keeper, I made 

 he mistake of suppofing that they would be 



prompt in coming forward to the defense of 

 any one in danger of being driven out of the 

 ranks, but out of the thousands of bee- 

 keepers only a few hundreds are willing to 

 pay the small sum of one dollar each for the 

 protection of their brethren, as shown by 

 the reports of the Bee-Keepers' Union. 



Several times I have studied out plans that 

 I thought would work well with bees, and 

 had such confidence in them that I did not 

 wait to test them on a small scale, but put 

 them in use on a large scale, and the plans 

 didn't work out among the bees just as they 

 did in my head, and I lost by it. It was a 

 mistake not to try it first on a few hives, in- 

 stead of on a hundred. 



I have made the mistake of raising some 

 very poor queens by giving the bees no un- 

 sealed brood whatever, except some just 

 hatched, or eggs alone, and then supposing 

 they could not raise queens from anything 

 but very young larvte. As a matter of fact, 

 they are very likely in such a case to raise 

 some queens from larvse entirely too old. 

 First they start some that are all right from 

 part of the young larvte, and the remainder 

 of the young larvte are continued as workers. 

 In two or three days more they take a notion 

 to start some more queen cells, and they 

 may take that notion every day as long as 

 they have anything unsealed. The remedy 

 is to destroy all unsealed larvie after 24 or 

 48 hours that have not already been started 

 as queens — at least, that's one way of 

 remedying it. 



The idea that I could easily fill up a whole 

 number with mistakes must have been a 

 mistake. 



Maeengo, III. 



Jan. 10, 1889. 



Too Few Bees— Overstocking— Treating Foul 



Brood — Too Large Hives — Planting for 



Honey — Editorial Errors. 



jas. a. green. 



jHE familiar adage of Josh Billings, 

 that " Eggsperieiice is a good skule, 

 but the tuishion is purty hi," shows the 

 estimate tlie world has always placed 

 on this way of ac(iuiring knowledge. It is 

 not the successful experience that is expen- 

 sive, but the mistakes. 



True, there are excei)tioiis. ■ Often an ap- 

 parent success is prowni by its results a 

 costly failure. But the lessons that sink 

 deepest into the mind are those of defeat. 



^\e may, if we will, leani almost as much 

 from the experience of <jlhers as from our 

 own. and at much less cost. This is a larac- 

 tical age, and it is one of its special bless- 

 ings that in almost any branch of industry 

 we may so easily and cheaply learn from 

 the experience of others what would cost us 

 so much more to acquire from our own. So 

 the topic chosen for discussion is a good one, 

 and I trust will prove profitable. 



With the editor, I am ready to confess 

 that I have been making a great mistake in 

 not keeping enough bees. With the appli- 

 ances we now have one man can profitably 

 care for a great many more bees than I 

 would have admitted five years ago. In the 



